It wasn't always that way. Las Cruces Police Chief Richard Williams has surveyed car crash scenes for more than 20 years.

"The perception is worse," said Williams, sitting at his office and looking at data of fatal car crashes in the county. "The vehicle itself looks worse."

The aftermath of many wrecks may look serious, but fortunately, the number of fatal car crashes is dropping all over the country, including Doña Ana County.

According to figures provided to the Sun-News by the New Mexico Department of Transportation and the University of New Mexico Division of Government Research, the number of fatal crashes and total people killed in car crashes has been declining, slowly and steadily, every year since 1997.

Those statistics produce a spiky chart, and the line has been climbing a bit most recently. Through October of this year, 28 people died in car crashes within Doña Ana County. At this time last year, 14 had died in car crashes (eventually 18 died in 2011).

Car crashes had been among the top 10 causes of death in America every year since 1981, when the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration started tracking such data.

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That finally stopped in 2009, according to the most recent statistics available.

Williams credited several factors with the overall downward trend in car crash deaths, primarily the technology automobile manufactures have implemented. Some of them, such as crumple zones, disfigure a car's exterior, as Williams noted, for the sake off keeping the passenger compartment intact.

"Those advancements have made vehicles safer," Williams said. "... the other thing I think is contributing is advances in emergency medicine."

But even the brightest automotive engineers and medical professionals often struggle to save lives when people don't wear seat belts.

According to the data, 66.7 percent of people killed in Doña Ana County car crashes this year were not wearing seat belts.

That's the highest percentage in the county since 1997.

Statewide, about 44 percent of those killed in car crashes did not wear a seat belt.

Williams called the county numbers "troubling."

The county's unusually high numbers come at time when seat belt use in America is at an all-time high. According to the most recent study from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 86 percent of U.S. drivers and passengers buckle up.

That rate is even higher in states with laws that allow police to pull over and cite people simply for not wearing a seat belt. In those 32 states, including New Mexico, 90 percent of people fasten seat belts.

Williams and Pete Kassetas, deputy chief with New Mexico State Police, each said their agencies have made enforcement pushes to compel seat belt use.

A tragic May crash in Anthony, N.M. underscores why police emphasize seat belts. Four members of a young family — including a toddler and baby girl, born prematurely after the crash — died after the father blew through a stop sign on Vinton Road. Police said nobody in the car had been wearing a seat belt.

East of that intersection, and eight years earlier, a wrong-way driver died and killed five others on Interstate 10 in a head-on collision. Preliminary toxicology reports indicated the wrong-way driver was intoxicated. Friends said he had been drinking.

Those deaths were among 45 in 2004, the highest number of deaths in the 16-year NMDOT data. That year, 42.2 percent of car-crash deaths were alcohol related.

That number, too, has been dropping. This year 21.4 percent of car-crash deaths have been alcohol related.

Kassetas said the State Police "try to key in on alcohol-involved fatalities."

He added that agencies were "able to make substantial decreases in alcohol-related crashes by looking at the five (worst) counties."

Part of those efforts will be apparent during the holiday season with DWI checkpoints and other initiatives.

Kassetas said police have found success in data-driven police work. That's part of the reason fatal crashes have declined over time, but can vary widely from year to year.

Said Kassetas: "It's not always an exact science."

Enforcement is just part of the picture, one prong in what Williams refers to as the "three E's" — enforcement, engineering and education.

Williams described U.S. 70 as "our biggest area of vulnerability."

In October alone, three people died in car crashes on that notorious stretch, including a pedestrian with Alzheimer's disease who wandered away from his nearby home, and a mother and teen who died driving to school on Halloween morning when a small SUV crossed the median and slammed into their car. The investigation into that crash is ongoing, an LCPD spokesman said.

For that high-risk area, enforcement measures come as grant-funded overtime that has helped LCPD and other agencies increase officer presence on U.S. 70, especially during peak driving time.

The engineering piece is, according to the NMDOT, in the works for next year, when several safety improvements, costing an estimated $2.5 million, will be made. Included in this: threading a much-needed cable barrier through the median of U.S. 70.

As for the education? Williams said that applies throughout town, not just the more dangerous areas such as U.S. 70. He said that distracted driving is a significant concern.

"Everybody focuses on texting or cell phones or whatever, but there's a whole host of other things that happen to a driver when they're going down the road and not paying attention," Williams said.

That includes eating, grooming, talking to passengers and adjusting the radio.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, driver distraction affected 18 percent of injury crashes in 2010. The NMDOT data did not have information specific to New Mexico.

James Staley may be reached at 575-541-5476. Follow him on Twitter @auguststaley

BY THE NUMBERS

A look at fatal car crashes in the area, through Oct. 31.

This year in Doña Ana County

28: People killed in car crashes

22: Fatal car crashes

21.4: Percentage of car-crash deaths in which alcohol was involved

66.7: Percentage of people killed in car crashes not wearing seat belts

This year in New Mexico

326: People killed in car crashes

40.8: Percentage of car-crash deaths in which alcohol was involved

44.1: Percentage of people killed in car crashes not wearing seat belts

In Doña Ana County, since 1997

432: People killed in car crashes

378: Fatal car crashes

27: People killed, on average, each year in car crashes

23.6: Fatal car crashes, on average, each year

High and low

13: People killed in 2008 car crashes, the lowest number since 1997

45: People killed in 2004 car crashes, the highest number since 1997

— Sources: New Mexico Department of Transportation,University of New Mexico Division of Government Research